Forensic Evidence of Violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar

For more than 15 years, Physicians for Human Rights has been documenting and calling for action around human rights atrocities in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Our most recent work forensically documents atrocities suffered by the Rohingya at the hands of the Myanmar military, and has been submitted to the UN Human Rights Council.

Refugee camps in Bangladesh are currently home to almost 700,000 Rohingyas fleeing ethnic persecution by the Myanmar government, which has waged a campaign of extreme violence against them. Since August 2017, soldiers and civilians in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state have led brutal attacks against Rohingya women, men, and children – attacks which PHR has called to be investigated as crimes against humanity. The United Nations’ special envoy on human rights in Myanmar says the military’s violent operations against the Rohingya bear “the hallmarks of a genocide.”

A team of PHR doctors has been working in the refugee camps to forensically document the beatings, rapes, gunshot wounds, and burns suffered by the Rohingya to corroborate their stories and help them seek justice.

Learn more about our research on the Rohingya and into abuses suffered by other minorities in Myanmar here.